Knock, knock — who’s there?

[attach]2437[/attach]Liquor stored in the mailbox.

Residents in various stages of undress.

Candidates canvassing door-to-door for votes really get to know neighbours during election time.

Sometimes a little too well.

When Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth council hopeful [url=https://streeter.ca/candidate-wants-to-be-accessible-247.html]Mark Dewdney[/url] was out canvassing near Broadview and Gerrard in August, he knocked on one door and was surprised to find a man answer in his birthday suit, glass of wine in hand.

“I was about to put the flyer in the mailbox and head out and all of a sudden, the door opened and there he was.”

Dewdney assumed the man was having fun with him, but he persevered, delivering his campaign message.

“The funny thing is, I think he forgot a couple of minutes later that he was in the buck and he actually started engaging me,” Dewdney said. “We talked about Transit City.”

While it was never addressed during their conversation, Dewdney has one somewhat logical explanation for the man’s lack of clothing that day — the weather.

“It was still pretty warm out.”

Dewdney isn’t the only candidate to report buck sightings at the door.

When several older men in a building near the Esplanade each answered the door in their skivvies, former mayoral candidate [url=https://streeter.ca/sprawling-transit-system-key-to-improving-our-city-thomson.html]Sarah Thomson[/url] was forced to issue a directive to her team of volunteers, mostly made up of young women: “Don’t look down, just look straight at their eyes and talk to them.”

Like Dewdney, Thomson said she was taken aback by the lack of appropriate clothing, but she too persevered, intent on taking advantage of a potential supporter’s ear.

[Quote]Don’t look down, just look straight at their eyes and talk to them.[/Quote]

“When you’re canvassing you have to get your message across so anybody that’ll listen and will open their door to you and talk to you, that’s your opportunity there,” she said.

Other candidates get a quick glimpse into unusual family secrets. Paul Ainslie, incumbent candidate for Scarborough East, recently shared via Twitter his experience visiting one resident who kept a bottle of liquor hidden in the mailbox, out of his wife’s sight. Why was the mailbox the best hiding spot for his stash? The wife never checked for mail.

With a total of 477 candidates knocking on doors during what some say has been one of the longest election campaigns in recent history, there’s likely hundreds of similar stories out there from every corner of the city.

But should any come as a surprise, really?

Because if there’s any lesson to be learned from this election, it’s that anything can happen.